Abstract
Varying levels of organizational commitment and job involvement generate a salesperson typology which is empirically assessed. Ten hypotheses are tested using a national sample of 235 industrial salespeople. Eight of the hypotheses are supported Significant differences in salesperson effort, performance and turnover propensities are identified for four salesperson categories.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Anderson, Erin, and Richard L. Oliver. 1987. “Perspectives on Behavior Based Versus Outcome-Based Salesforce Control Systems.”Journal of Marketing 51 (October): 76–88.
Angle, Harold L., and James L. Perry. 1981. “An Empirical Assessment of Organizational Commitment and Organizational Effectiveness.”Administrative Science Quarterly 26 (March): 1–14.
Armstrong, Scott J., and Terry S. Overton. 1977. “Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Survey.”Journal of Marketing Research (August): 396–340.
Ashforth, Blake E., 1985. “Climate Formation: Issues and Extensions.”Academy of Management Review 10 (4): 837–847.
Bateman, Thomas S., and Dennis W. Organ. 1983. “Job Satisfaction and The Good Soldier: The Relationship Between Affect and Employee Citizenship.”Academy of Management Journal 26.: 587–595.
Behrman, Douglas N., and William D. Perreault, Jr. 1982. “Measuring the Performance of Industrial Salespersons”Journal of Business Research 10 (September): 355–370.
Blau, Gary J. 1985. “A Multiple Study, Investigation of the Dimensionality of Job Involvement.”Journal of Vocational Behavior 27 (August): 19–36.
Blau, Gary L., and Kimberly B. Boal. 1987. “Conceptualizing How Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment Affect Turnover and Absenteeism.”Academy of Management Review 12 (2): 288–300.
Blau, Gary L., and Kimberly B. Boal. 1989. “Using Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment Interactively to Predict Turnover.”Journal of Management 15 (1): 115–127.
Blessington, Mark. 1989. “Five Ways to Make Team Selling Work (Really!).”Business Month (August): 71–72.
Bragg, Arthur. 1989. “Is a Mentor Program in Your Future?”Sales & Marketing Management (September): 54–63.
—. 1990. “Shell-Shocked on the Battlefield of Selling.”Sales & Marketing Management (July): 52–56.
Busch, Paul. 1980. “The Sales Manager’s Bases of Social Power and Influence Upon the Salesforce.”Journal of Marketing 44 (Summer): 91–101.
Chonko, Lawrence B. 1986. “Organizational Commitment in the Salesforce.”Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management 6 (November): 19–27.
Churchill, Gilbert A., Jr., Neil M. Ford, and Orville C. Walker, Jr. 1978. “Predicting a Salesperson’s Job Effort and Performance: Theoretical, Empirical, and Methodological Consideration.” Paper Presented at the AMA/MSI Sales Management Workshop, Boston, MA (April)
Churchill, Gilbert A., Jr., Neil M. Ford, Steven W. Hartley, and Orville C. Walker, Jr. 1985. “The Determinants of Salesperson Performance: A Meta-Analysis.”Journal of Marketing Research XXII (May): 103–118.
Comer, James M., and Alan J. Dubinsky. 1985.Managing the Successful Salesforce. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
Cron, William L., and John W. Slocum, Jr. 1986. “The Influence of Career Stages on Salespeople’s Job Attitudes, Work Perceptions, and Performance.”Journal of Marketing Research 23 (May): 119–129.
Cron, William L., Alan J. Dubinsky, and Ronald E. Michaels. 1988. “The Influence of Career Stages on Components of Salesperson Motivation.”Journal of Marketing 52 (January): 78–92.
Dalton, Dan R., William D. Todor, and David M. Krackhardt. 1982. “Turnover Overstated: The Functional Taxonomy”Academy of Management Review 7 (1): 117–123.
Darden, William R., Ronald Hampton, and Roy D. Howell. 1989. “Career Versus Organizational Commitment: Antecedents and Consequences of Retail Salespeoples’ Commitment.”Journal of Retailing 65 (1): 80–106.
Dubinsky, Alan J., Roy D. Howell, Thomas N. Ingram, and Danny N. Bellenger. 1986. “Salesforce Socialization.”Journal of Marketing 50 (October): 192–207.
Dubinsky, Alan J., and Steven W. Hartley. 1986. “A Path-Analytic Study of a Model of Salesperson Performance.”Journal of The Academy of Marketing Science 14 (1): 36–46.
Dubinsky, Alan J., and Francis J. Yammarino. 1985. “Job-Related Responses of Insurance Agents: A Multi-Firm Investigation.”Journal of Risk and Insurance 52 (3): 501–517.
Fisher, Cynthia D., and Richard Gittelson. 1983. “A Meta-Analysis of the Correlates of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity.”Journal of Applied Psychology 68: 320–333.
Ford, Neil M., Gilbert A. Churchill, Jr., and Orville C. Walker, Jr. 1985. “Differences in the Attractiveness of Alternative Rewards Among Industrial Salespeople: Additional Evidence.”Journal of Business Research 13 (April): 123–138.
Futrell, Charles M., and A. Parasuraman. 1984. “The Relationship of Satisfaction and Performance to Sales Turnover.”Journal of Marketing 48 (Fall): 33–40.
Greenberg, Herbert, and Jeanne Greenberg. 1990.What It Takes To Succeed In Sales. Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin.
Hackman, I.R., and G.R. Oldham. 1975. “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.”Journal of Applied Psychology 60 (April): 159–170.
Hafer, John C. 1986. “An Empirical Investigation of the Salesperson’s Career Stages Perspective.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 12 (Fall): 52–62.
Hall, Douglas T., James G. Goodale Samuel Rabinowitz, and Marilyn A. Morgan. 1978. “Effects of Top-Down Departmental and Job Change Upon Perceived Employee Behavior and Attitudes: A Natural Field Experiment.”Journal of Applied Psychology 63 (February): 62–72.
Hunt, Shelby D., 1976.Marketing Theory. Columbus, OH: Grid.
Hunt, Shelby D., Lawrence B. Chonko, and Van R. Wood. 1985. “Organizational Commitment in Marketing.”Journal of Marketing 49 (Winter): 112–126.
Hunt, Shelby D., Van R. Wood, and Lawrence B. Chonko. 1989. “Corporate Ethical Values and Organizational Commitment in Marketing.”Journal of Marketing 53 (July): 79–90.
Ingram, Thomas N.., Danny N. Bellenger. 1983. “Personal and Organizational Variables: Their. Relative Effect on Reward Valences of Industrial Salespeople.”Journal of Marketing Research 20 (May): 198–205.
Jackofsky, Ellen F., and Lawrence H. Peters. 1983. “Job Turnover Versus Company Turnover: Reassessment of the March and Simon Participation Hypothesis.”Journal of Applied Psychology 63 (3): 490–495.
Jolson, Marvin A. 1974. “The Salesman Career Cycle”Journal of Marketing 38 (July): 39–46.
Johnston, Mark W., Rajan Varadarajan, Charles M. Futrell, and Jeffrey Sager. 1987. “The Relationship Between Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Among New Salespeople”Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management 7 (November): 29–38.
Kennedy, Ellen J., and Leigh Lawton. 1990. “Men and Women in the Industrial Salesforce: A Longitudinal Study.” InAmerican Marketing Association Educators’ Conference Proceedings. Eds. William Bearden et al.
Krayer, Karl J. 1986. “Using Training to Reduce Role Conflict and Ambiguity.”Training and Development Journal 40 (November): 49–52.
Learning International. 1989. “What Does Salesforce Turnover Cost You?”
Lee, Thomas W., and Richard T. Mowday. 1987. “Voluntarily Leaving An Organization: An Empirical Investigation of Steeres and Mowday’s Model of Turnover.”Academy of Management Journal 30 (4): 721–743
Lucas, George H., Jr. 1985. “The Relationships Between Job Attitudes, Personal Characteristics, and Job Outcomes: A Study of Retail Store Managers.”Journal of Retailing 61 (1): 35–62.
Marketing Times. 1990. “A New Look at Salesforce Turnover: Is It a Problem with No Solution?” (January/February).
Michaels, Ronald E., William L. Cron, Alan J. Dubinsky, and Erich A. Joachimsthaler. 1988. “The Influence of Formalization on the Organizational Commitment and Work, Alienation of Salespeople and Industrial Buyers.”Journal of Marketing Research 25 (November): 376–383.
Mobley, William H. 1982.Employee Turnover: Causes, Consequences, and Control. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Moncrief, William C. 1986. “Selling Activity and Sales Position Taxonomies for Industrial Salesforces.”Journal of Marketing Research 23 (August): 261–270.
Morris, Michael H., Ramon Avila, and Eugene Teeple. 1990. “Sales Management As An Entrepreneurial Activity.”Personal Selling and Sales Management X (2): 1–11.
Nunnally, J.C. 1978.Psychometric Theory. 2nd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Podskoff, Philip M., and Dennis W. Organ. 1986. “Self-Reports in Organizational Research: Problems and Prospects.”Journal of Management 12 (Winter): 531–544.
Porter, Lyman W., and Richard M. Steers. 1973. “Organizational Work and Personal Factors in Employee Turnover and Absenteeism.”Psychological Bulletin, 80: 151–175.
Porter, Lyman W., Robert M. Steers, Richard T. Mowday, and Paul V. Boulian. 1974. “Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Among Psychiatric Technicians.”Journal of Applied Psychology 59 (October): 603–609.
Rabinowitz, Samuel, and Douglas T. Hall. 1977. “Organizational Research on Job Involvement.”Psychological Bulletin 84: 265–288.
Randall, Donna M. 1987. “Commitment and the Organization: The Organization Man Revisited.”Academy of Management Review 12 (July): 460–471.
Rusbult, Carly E., and Dan Farrell. 1983. “A Longitudinal Test of the Investment Model: The Impact of Job Satisfaction, Job Commitment, and Turnover of Variations in Rewards, Costs, Alternatives, and Investments.”Journal of Applied Psychology 63 (3): 429–438.
Sager, Jeffrey K., and Mark W. Johnston. 1989. “Antecedents and Outcomes of Organizational Commitment: A Study of Salespeople.”Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management 9 (Spring): 30–41.
Sales and Marketing Management 1989. “Survey of Selling Cost.” (February).
Siegel, Alan L., and Robert A. Ruh. 1973. “Job Involvement, Participation in Decision Making, Personal Background, and Job Behavior.”Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 9: 318–329.
Walker, Orville C. Jr., Gilbert A. Churchill Jr., and Neil M. Ford. 1972. “Reactions to Role Conflict: The Case of the Industrial Salesman.”Journal of Business, Administration 3 (Spring): 601–609
Walker, Orville C. Jr., Gilbert A. Churchill Jr., and Neil M. Ford. 1979. “Where Do We Go From Here? Selected Conceptual and Empirical Issues Concerning the Motivation and Performance of the Industrial Salesforce.”Issues in Sales Management: State-of-the-Art and Future Research Needs. Eds. Gerald Albaum and Gilbert A. Churchill, Jr. Eugene, OR: Division of Research, College of Business Administration, University of Oregon.
Wiener, Yoash, and Yoan Vardi. 1980. “Relationship Between Job, Organization, and Career Commitments and Work Outcomes: An Integrative Approach.”Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 26 (August): 81–96.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ingram, T.N., Lee, K.S. & Lucas, G.H. Commitment and involvement: Assessing a salesforce typology. JAMS 19, 187–197 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02726495
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02726495